You rang me on New Years,
Crying,
Just as I had managed to forget,
And told me we'd get through this together.

And I wept more for your case
Than I ever did for mine
As they told me
"Common things are common"
Though you insisted
That your cysts were sinister.

Even if you really were
Under your 'mother's maiden name',
You never told me
That you were alright,
When I had more than enough
Pills, injections and appointments
To worry about
Than asking my father to look for you
When neither your name nor conscience,
Were anywhere to be seen.

I've always had my doubts about places of fire and brimstone
But never wished it on anyone, nevertheless,
And nor do I now.
But I do believe
In places of eternal sleeplessness, nausea and screaming children on long haul flights,
And that there is an seat reserved for you,
With no legroom.

When I broke down, as the bus did,
On our way to maths,
I was thankful for you.
As you should be of me,
That I haven't told anyone
You lied to an ill young girl
For attention.

And still I think,
You're sicker than I ever was.

Plane Poetry: I go to Barber*

aisle seat C 14,
an emergency exit row,
forced to solemnly swear
that for the extra legroom,
I will solemnly assist to open
the exit door, me first as my reward,
and keep my terrified screaming
below an elephant's trumpeting mating call

what hast this to do with a trip to Barber?

you Brits and Aussies, ever economical,
say went 'to hospital,'
leaving we Ameddicans
to dignify that august institution
as going to
The Hospital

Thus advised, be apprised, a
Nota Bene Benidictus:

I go to Barber,
Not
I go to the barber.

Samuel Barber,
Adagio for String Quartet, Barber

If unfamiliar with this piece,
you will recall it well
if "Apocalypse Now" registers at all

If not stop immediately,
return to Go,
start here,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRMz8fKkG2g


be prepared to surrender your mortality,
listen and if effected,
if you find yourself on your knees
weeping, recalling the days of loss,
the early empires of hope,
the first kiss
of your firstborn
and unknowingly,
the last you gave
a loved one

if you have the courage to
be touched and impacted,
as I,
then welcome back to
right here where why...

I go to Barber
where violins soar me heavenwards,
where violins rip open sores long since scarred over,
I go to Barber
and float, eyes sky'd, as water
fills and departs my body simultaneously,
I go to Barber
to know that art can rise beyond,
that my weakened, wrecked human flesh, surpassable  
I go to Barber
to harmonize my disconcordia,
romantic lyricisize my waning days,
I go to Barber
to voluntary confess, admit my impoverishment,
to acknowledge that they, my days, yet are capable,
I go to Barber
to remember and to forget,
to mark and unmark time
I go to Barber
to be created and recreated,
to be destructed and despaired
I go to Barber
to acknowledge, as human, better is forever possible,
for of the god spark, yet unextinguished
I go to Barber
because there is no plane as fast as his slow adagio,
to transport me to the who I am and should yet be

The older I become, the more I realize how much I actually hate people. I mean, sure, I'm a person. But realistically, I must be some kind of over-developed species in comparison to the crude, superficial primitive people that accompany me on this plane. Just because the seat belt sign is off doesn't mean you HAVE to take off your seat belt. Are you really THAT claustrophobic that you must get up and go to the bathroom at the slightest moment that you are not prohibited to do so? Is it COMPLETELY necessary to recline your seat, knowing that this plane is small enough as it is? And maybe, just maybe, did you realize that I'm almost 6 foot 3 and feel cramped with no legroom without your drunk, fat, "tired" *** flushing common courtesy and consideration down the toilet and reclining your seat all the way? No, it's fine. Keep bumping into my legs, sir. Oh yes, ma'am, knock my elbow as I'm writing. No, mom, I don't care about that friend of yours who just bought a new tablet. I just want to drown. Drown in my music, buds shoved deep into my skull, immersed in the sounds that release me, allow me to escape, that lead me to peace. Line up, "humans". Go get your free samples of extra large over priced under indulged luxury non fat caramel double chocolate dipped deep fried newly displayed half price final sale no exchanges or returns *******.

I'll be here trying to live.

I grew up along a gravel road
in a refitted freight house once owned by a slate mining outfit
my backyard was a rolling sprawl of giant scrap-heaps made
of spent
or unusable slate
some slabs were as big as a tool shed;
mossy promontories jabbing and jutting like dull honey- badger quills
poking out of the hills
as they sprawled in their
heaps and their heaves
and their gullies.
it was a regular shangri la for a couple young boys born in the early to mid 80s
our own private wilderness;
adolescent paradise.
sometimes I would look up from my backyard to
the tops of those slate hills and
I would see my friend Joe.
he  was older than i was and I looked up to him and
I craned my neck
looking up to him then
standing at the summit of a slate hill,
hands on his hips
perched and
hiding behind his silhouette-
the Northampton County Sun setting on behind him
blood orange scarlet and
purple gray blue were the colors of those feelings back then.
time ticked on
the way time does.
my parents got a divorce and I moved across town
there were no slate hills in that backyard
and the slate company chain linked all the hills that remained
and so there stood
a fence between me
and the wonderland I once knew.
Joe died unexpectedly some years later in  
some obscure forest of
one of the Virginias
together we nurtured some regrets suspended in between our
childhood and those
terminal woods.
together we held some memories like beads strung along a strand of silk
translucent pearls like drops of dew
condensing
out there somewhere on the
eternal web of the akasha
unknown to even Indra
unknown to all but us.
couldn’t hold on any longer
had to let it go.  

my brother gave me a pencil cactus
it seemed to flourish in my care
I had been neglecting my own needs for years
not sure I knew what my needs even were
but that cactus needed water and light
and this much i knew
and this much i provided.
it turned a red color down near the bottom of the stalk -
looked it up on google;
some kind of pencil cactus rite of passage.
after the reddening
it becomes then the stick of fire.
we were kicking up dust
over all the trails
fading on behind us
we acted like it was eyes forward only…
towns I used to know, sinking without blinking
absorbed in the horizon on behind me.
I acted like I couldn’t take my eyes off the rear view.
we pulled up and parked on
another
orange
lane
me and my stick of fire.
we landed in a
townhouse -
plenty of legroom
even had central air.
I put the cactus under a window
on the second story
didn’t think about the air vent on the floor
blowin all that dry air
and my stick of fire
withered and wrinkled up
and it shrank and shriveled
I couldn’t bring it back
and i tried
but i
had to let it go.

a giant scooped me in his hands
he was massive
40 feet tall
the war horns blew in the distance when he walked.
he
cocked back his hand and tossed me
through the air
on over the horizon
i was surfing the high skies
on thermals and the slip
streams of vultures
and peregrine falcons-
all of us then dive bombing
all the skinwalkers
like a 2 dimensional love spiral made of
peaks and valleys
and deep trenches swimming in the waters of the
mystic arts….
I held the sun in my hand for exactly one moment
but i blinked and turned
back into a clanging cymbal
a vessel of divine prophecy
going on babbling in tongues.
now a raptor eats my liver every day at noon.
I heard the sun rising in my hands for only just a moment
it was warm and held me in a present bulb of space
I breathed it in
and held it
before I had to let it go.

the architecture of
the Wyoming Valley downtowns
are like frozen songs
crumbling into puddles in a *** hole.
the steam engines and the breakers
are empty skeletons
and dry leaves.
weasels and other vermin making homes inside of holes
the soul was laid off in the vacancy
conflagrations once able to burn down entire cities
at the top of golden arche, and
now the place smells like the smothered ashes of a
single
dwindling
ember .
I yearn for a smooth good-bye
you go ahead and talk and then i’ll go-
yet i ****** up another one
open throats and
another
wire barb in the
neocortex…
I had high hopes
but I had to let it go.

I had high expectations of an early grave
“here lies such and such”
stiff in the long stillness like a possum caught inside a headlight
what a relief that would of been in the brimstone of my twenties
but the roosters kept on crowing
the morning sun kept rising
shining
death away
the big sleep was a false hope
had to let it go.

By Jordan Gee

It's that time of year
When the holiday comes around
And I've trawled every shop in town
For trousers that fit me,
And suddenly it hits me
As I'm waiting to board the plane
That all the stress, the going insane
To get away is the only reason
I need a holiday this season

So I'm sat at the gate,
Six hours early because I'd hate to be late,
Despite living fifteen minutes away
And I'm passing the time reading a book
But my wife is giving me that look
That says she's bored, won't be ignored,
She expects me to entertain her
And I'm going insane (again)

Roll forward past an eternity
Of clock watching,
Of people watching,
Of checking the departures board,
And finally we're boarding
And finding our neat little seats
Specially designed with pixies in mind,
With storage space for a mushroom
And no noticeable legroom that I can find

The stewardesses trundle their trolleys
With offerings of lukewarm tea,
Bitter strong coffee,
A small selection of dusty dainties
And days old sandwiches
(Credit card or cash, Sir?)
You expect me to pay more
For what used to be free?
No thanks, just the lukewarm tea

Lurching to a stop after a bumpy drop,
I whisper a prayer of thanks
To the gods of pilots and engineers,
Resist the urge to shout three cheers,
Just the scrummage in the aisle
And a fight for the overhead space
To retrieve the frilly lace
Handkerchief that somehow exceeded
The airlines stringent weight limits
For my hand luggage permits,
Incurring an additional fee as a penalty

The airport signs indicate the way
To an endless corridor of rotating
Carousels, a new kind of hell
Where strangers stand shoulder to shoulder,
Giving no quarter as they wait and wait
For the baggage handlers, who went on a break
The minute the plane arrived,
And until they've checked inside
Every likely looking bag
For cameras, iPhones and valuable swag
They'll keep us waiting and anticipating

This time we got lucky,
All the bags arrived, most of them survived
Intact, though one was so bashed
It looked like a giant had smashed
A heavy boot down, just to make us pay
For going away on holiday
A quick run past the customs men
With their sidearms and sideways glances
And we're free and clear in the outside air

We join a rank queue of sweaty fliers
At the rank queue of sweaty cab drivers
And wait our turn to learn our fate,
Which cab will we get to hate?
We've taken a second mortgage on our home,
Lived six months without a phone
Or electricity just to save enough cash
For this last mad dash,
A quick hop to the hotel,
A quick prayer that the linen won't smell,
And one final night of broken sleep
Before the going is complete
And we have officially "Arrived".

It's a loneliness
of passion that makes me
want you tonight, at twoAM --
or the breaking
of dawn-- cracking
the proverbial egg
of the morning with you over
tea, toast, and your temperament.

It's funny how my legs don't work
like they used to,
and their smile is all
but a glimmer of some instant trapped
in the backseat of your car.
With just enough legroom
for 2.

I've never done this
before. I've never
done this
before.

you could get caught up in all that nonsense like you wanted to, or you could just jump right into the fray like you did last night--the choice is yours, but you shouldn't mistake one for the other: the former is filled with nothingness and lifeless characters who are only ghosts in your mind, while the latter is at least a struggle to figure out what all this **** really means and where you need to go, what you need to do to make it all work--take what happened last night when you got on the bus: there was no room left except in the space right behind the punk girl who was chewing gum--now, you knew it was a bad idea, but what were you going to do, grab some ceiling bar and sway, and lurch, sway and lurch till you got where you were going?--hell no, it was supposed to be a civilized world, and so you'd wanted to sit--in your head, you'd already earned the right to sit just by virtue of there being a seat, just by you wanting to sit down without ever wanting to push someone else out of the way to get it...so when you finally did change your own mind and convince yourself that she was just some kid trying to act cool, that there weren't going to be any problems, that's just when she pressed that button underneath the armrest that adjusts the angle of the chair, and the whole thing headrest and all, came crushing down on you so that you had to look across at the women you'd come onto the bus with, the one who was supposed to be your lover and your friend, and you knew from the reaction on her face, which was fear and horror mixed with laughter, that you were once again allowing yourself to play the ******* clown, and all so that it would take the edge off of what you really wanted to do and say--who the hell did that little ***** think she was, anyway?--she knew you weren't supposed to lean the chair back that far, she knew there was next to no legroom back here--it was between the rear of the bus and her chair for christ's sake!--and yet as you felt your face pinging with both the pain of sudden discomfort and with the u deniable and stinking presence of the upholstery that had been filthied by years and years of ***** hands, *****, sneezes, and smoke, you also felt through all this that she was getting comfortable in her chair, that punk girl, that she was maybe even readying herself for a nap as you were living through a new experience of being torn between losing your **** asking who the **** she thought she was and the civil propriety expected of you to solve all of this amicably, or at least without harsh words and ***** looks...but if anything had been the story of your life, it'd been this very thing: how to not lose your mind when almost every ******* button was being pushed and pressed over and over to make you do just that--it wasn't an easy thing to first wrest your whole head from between the wall and her headrest and then lean to the side and whisper to your friend that you really needed to move, that you'd meet her at the next stop if you lost each other on the bus, and her silence meant exactly that: she wasn't giving up her seat for anyone or anything--she'd seen it first and had gotten there first and it was hers by right of this layman's etiquette, it wasn't like you were going to argue the point with her because you knew she was right--the seat she was sitting in was hers, you weren't suggesting that she change seats just go be closer to you, just because the two of you were together--what was this, middle school?--it's not like this was a nightmare or something, you'd just have to find each other later on, no big deal, right?--except that for you, it was a big deal: it wasn't that you were asking her to trade places with you or surrender her place and that she should go find another because she was smaller than you, no--you were just hoping she'd want to give up her seat in order to be closer to you, and you couldn't help but feel a little slighted and you knew it wouldn't take very long before this "slighted" feeling made you feel put out, that once more, you'd be expected to hold your tongue and get over it because when compared with the "big things" in life, what the hell was her not wanting to exchange her comfort alone for being uncomfortable with you possibly in a standing position till the bus pulled into the station?--it wasn't a big deal at all, you knew it, but it did feel a little "larger than life" just because of the physical discomfort you'd been put through just now...seriously, what ***** would've just stayed there being squished like a bug between the wall and that punk girl's seat?--in your head you were playing alternate ways you could've handled that whole thing that wouldn't have resulted in you squeezing yourself out of what had felt like the jaws of death around your skull, you had started imagining what might've happened if you'd simply asked her to put her seat up a few degrees so you could pretend you weren't a ******* veal being prepped for slaughter, imagined her response to be, "it's my chair," and doing nothing about it, which would've prompted you to say, "but it's my fist," and what kind of trouble could you have expected after that bus ride when the thing finally pulled into the station?--she would've taken a picture of you with her phone, gotten a cop, and you would've been right back in trouble just like you felt you always were, like your old man had always told you you'd be because of that mouth of yours--and in the life you'd always wanted to live, the one where people did sort through their problems using communication, using the experienced gleaned from previous and present relationships, the life you often lived yourself where you heard yourself speaking the words in the way that you'd always wanted to speak them where you could convince yourself that you really and truly were that person, that man who could refrain from all violence in order to serve the greater good of actuating all desire through talk and thought and connecting with other people, like this you had convinced yourself this was the norm, that everyone should just ask things politely and be gentle about getting rejected or when life handed down some pretty rough **** to deal with...how many times had you heard yourself speak such words that you couldn't help but think we're too soft or seemed too obsequious...but were they "civilized," were they peaceful?--yes, they had been, but maybe they'd been too civilized, too peaceful, and maybe the propel who'd been listening, those you'd been dealing with had mistaken your kindness and respectfulness for weakness--hadn't it happened before, and hadn't it brought out the very worst in you?--because, in unwind response, you had become the animal: it started with that look of yours they used to call part of your "black mood" and then sometimes it would escalate into the kind of cursing that pre-empted a scene of violence--between these two things, people usually caved or the situation resolved itself, but how had you felt afterward?: always like an animal and never like the educated man you'd spent all your life cultivating from the deadness they'd given you to work with, from the nothing they'd given you as a blueprint for success in this world--yes, you were a wolf, but life had made you a lone wolf, and now you were growing tired of all of it, tired of being put into these situations, tired of having to do the exact right thing in any given situation even if you knew it was someone else's version of what was right you were being judged by...and what were you going to do?: dump her on her *** because you were expected to "be a man" both by finding another seat and by intimidating the punk girl into submitted to your will?--who could satisfy both at once?--you didn't need this kind of judgment, it was bad enough already that you all "all this" just having a blast with ******* yourself up with all these options that weren't really options at all--if you gave the girl a ***** look, your woman would snub you because if it and she wouldn't let you forget it--for years later, you'd be called out for behaving like an animal...and yet if you said nothing and found another seat, she'd be mortified that she had chosen someone who wasn't a "real man"--god, how many times had you wanted to show her that if being a "real man" meant using violence or the penchant for using violence as a first response to any and all problems, then you would always be the "real"-est of men...there was no way to win this, it was the hallmark of civilization after all--you might've wanted to think you were a "lone wolf," but weren't you with that woman not giving up her seat back there, weren't you on a bus full of people?--weren't you going to busy yourself for the rest of this day and most of the next trying to get your mind off of this flashpoint that had almost become an outburst not "then and there" but in the here and now?--and what had been the chances of you coming out of all of this looking good, what were the chances that you'd find her at the station after you'd both gotten off the bus without a moue of disgust on her face you'd be expected to ignore and also ask her about because both would show you cared too much, both would show you'd ****** up, both would show there was no way to win, which was something you knew in advance, that you'd known just as soon as you got up lurching and swaying from ceiling bar to ceiling bar looking for another seat...but that didn't mean you were used to it, not yet anyway--